Posted on 11/22/2005 12:16:53 PM PST by blitzgig
WASHINGTON - Hugh Sidey, whose personal portraits of America's chief executives appeared in Time magazine's "The Presidency" column over four decades, died Monday. He was 78.
His brother, Ed Sidey, said other relatives told him that Sidey had suffered a heart attack in Paris. He lived in suburban Potomac, Md.
Sidey, who served as Time's White House correspondent and its Washington bureau chief, wrote "The Presidency" from 1966 to 1996. He was a contributing editor to the newsweekly at the time of his death.
Reflecting on the presidents in a 2003 interview, Sidey said: "They are not as tall or articulate as you think they should be. And they're not super people, so that is a bit of a letdown. Then you begin to understand, though, when you write about them as I have, how vital they are to the American system."
Beginning with John F. Kennedy, whom he once interviewed during a swim at the White House, Sidey enjoyed unusual access to the presidents. He tended to focus on the personal dimensions of those in power, and his balanced portraits, whether sympathetic or critical, often endeared him to the men who occupied the Oval Office.
"He proved you can write about people in power and still be the gentleman journalist," said James Carney, Washington bureau chief for the magazine. "He's in some ways the model we all aspire to."
Sidey was on hand for many of the triumphs and tragedies the presidents experienced.
He was in Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, traveled extensively with Lyndon B. Johnson — whom he considered the most fascinating person he ever knew — and flew to China with Richard M. Nixon in 1972.
He walked through Moscow's Red Square with Ronald Reagan in 1988 and, last year, was aboard the plane that carried Reagan's body to California.
In a statement, former first lady Nancy Reagan recalled that event and Sidey's presence a few weeks ago at the dedication of the Air Force One Pavilion at the Reagan Library. "Today, I have lost a dear friend and America has lost one of its most trusted journalists," she said.
Sidey was hired by Life magazine in New York in 1955 and went to Washington in 1957 to cover the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower. He later joined the Washington staff of Time and wrote about every president from Eisenhower to George W. Bush.
He wrote or contributed to seven books on the chief executive, including "Hugh Sidey's Portraits of the Presidents" (2004). He also was a chairman of the White House Historical Association.
Sidey appeared as a panelist on the television program "Agronsky & Company" and its successor, "Inside Washington," for nearly 25 years.
A fourth-generation newsman, Sidey was born in Greenfield, Iowa, on Sept. 3, 1927, and grew up working on his father's weekly newspaper. After serving in the Army, he received a bachelor's degree in journalism from Iowa State College in 1950. He worked for newspapers in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Omaha, Neb., before joining Time Inc.
Sidey and his wife, Anne, married in 1953 and raised three daughters and a son.
With all due respect... one less DNC b@ll-washer.
I used to enjoy reading his columns. Of course, that was long before I wised up to how much the media was attempting to brainwash me.
Hugh?? That's series!
I did ,too..
Really? I remember him making some "interesting" comments about Bill Clinton when he was on TV back in the nineties. I'll see if I can dig them up.
...and I remember his comments on everything else.
02/01/2001
Reporter offers up-close look at recent U.S. presidents
........................................................................... BY B.J. ALMOND Rice News Staff
What makes a good president?
“Character, in the end, is the essential ingredient,” said Time magazine contributor Hugh Sidey, who has reported on every U.S. president since Dwight Eisenhower.
The understanding of right from wrong distinguishes an effective leader, he said. “It doesn’t mean the man is perfect and doesn’t make mistakes, but there is a heart there that tries to find out what the truth is.”
Speaking Jan. 17 at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Sidey shared his opinions of and anecdotes about some of the U.S. presidents whose pictures were featured in Time magazine’s traveling exhibit, “Time and the Presidency,” which was on display at the Baker Institute Jan. 8-31.
“Trust was the bedrock of Ike’s presidency, plus the great generalship that he showed in the war,” Sidey said about Eisenhower. Although Eisenhower was not articulate, “we knew what was in his heart,” Sidey said.
Sidey cited John Kennedy as one of two great orators, the other being Franklin Roosevelt. Noting that Kennedy could read 1,200 words a minute and obtained many of his ideas from biographies and history books, Sidey referred to Kennedy as “a good leader in his time.”
Sidey considers Lyndon Johnson to be “the greatest legislator we’ve ever had.” He said Johnson was a master at drafting legislative bills but was “trapped in bad advice.” Citing Johnson’s distrust of people in the military, Sidey said, “in the end it hurt him badly.”
Richard Nixon “didn’t understand Washington, but he understood the world,” Sidey said. He marveled at Nixon’s prescience about different nations, noting that Nixon cautioned against having enemies in China and Russia. “He was a remarkable talent that was forced out by Watergate,” Sidey said.
Although Sidey said Gerald Ford was not a reader, a scholar or a general, he referred to him as “a wonderful man of remarkable character.” He commended Ford for his willingness to admit he didn’t know the answer to a question. “He didn’t try to fake it. He got the people that knew, and he made that government run,” Sidey said.
About Jimmy Carter, Sidey said, “I don’t think he ever liked being president.” Carter wanted to be a missionary and work one-on-one with people, and he didn’t like telling people “no,” Sidey said. “He’s a good man in his heart and in his soul.”
Sidey credited Ronald Reagan with changing Washington “more than anybody else since Franklin Roosevelt.” He called Reagan a “remarkable leader” and said that during a trip to Moscow, Reagan gave some of the greatest speeches on foreign policy, on the meaning of America and on the entrepreneurial spirit that he has ever heard.
The president who “ran the government better than anybody” was George Bush, according to Sidey. Citing Desert Storm as “the single best governmental operation in foreign policy,” Sidey noted that the White House team of advisers debated and expressed differences of opinion, “but in the end, they followed George Bush.”
Sidey views Bill Clinton as a “strong, personal politician” but is amazed by Clinton’s popularity. He gave Clinton credit for not getting in the way of the private sector and allowing money invested in research and technology to drive the economy.
Sidey said that during the more than 40 years he has written about the American presidency, he has been surprised, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, by how some of the presidents have fared in office.
“Don’t be too fixed about your ideas,” he cautioned Rice students, faculty, staff and friends of the Baker Institute about the new president. “We don’t know what George W. Bush is going to do in that office exactly,” he said. “We have some ideas, but it will be a surprise for all of us and for him too.”
In addition to Sidey’s keynote address, the Baker Institute program featured James A. Baker III’s comments about politics.
Perspectives on Political Science; 6/22/1997; Henderson, Phillip G.Carter's obsession with detail not only bogged him down in unnecessary tasks, it also hampered his ability to see the forest for the trees. Over time, countless examples have surfaced of Carter's tendency to take in detail at intoxicating levels. Hugh Sidey of Time provided one of the more alarming illustrations of Carter's micromanagement of a major decision. In reviewing plans for the Iran hostage rescue attempt, Sidey said, "the president asked about the Iranian guards stationed inside the embassy, near the wall that the commandos intended to scale. Were they volunteers or conscripts? he wondered. If they were radicals, Carter explained, he could go along with killing them, but if they were only peasant conscripts, he wanted them knocked out temporarily."(34) Carter's decisionmaking, Sidey concluded, was gripped by the "tyranny of the trivial."
Sidey was one of the last of the great establishment journalists, before the profession was almost completely taken over by Leftists.
I regret his passing.
While those cherry-picked quotes are commendable... Sidey was basically the Mark Shields of his time.
I gueass all I can say besides R.I.P. is, "too bad he worked for such a disreputable news magazine." What an embarrassment to be associated with Time Warner. That stink doesn't rub off.
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